Soul: Backstory 1
by PinkWhirlWind
Summary: How Duo's little family copes with his injuries. After war, part of a bigger story, part of Duo 21 and Soul
1. Chapter 1

Soul: How Duo Lost His Legs

by Nix Winter

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing, The boys are just helping me out.

Notes: this is part of Soul, which is part of Duo 21

He'd been twenty that morning, still having the occasional nightmare motorcycles and Heeroes that just stood there staring at him as he bled out his soul. Nightmares weren't all that uncommon on L2. There were more ads for good sleep than wrinkle creams.

It hadn't been a good week at Maxwell House. Morning found Duo on the couch with Alex on top of him and Maggy between him and the couch. One foot braced on the floor kept them all off the floor. Alex had a grip on Duo's braid and the time was well after average families were up.

They were really average though. Duo both the girls had been with him about three years. Maggy was thirteen, looked half her age and clung to Duo as if he were the only safe adult she'd ever known.

Duo didn't know her history, didn't feel any need to tell her that he'd been a mecha pilot. She was terrified of any kind of weaponry or mention of war and Duo couldn't defeat her demons, for all he knew, his actions in the war might have affected her somehow. Now, now, he was her dad and her knight protector and she and Alex were his little princesses and they were his family, his reason for getting up and breathing when the weight of guilt and loss wanted to eat him alive.

Alex had been younger when Sister Alice had brought her to him. A four-year-old little creature of big eyes a screaming temper. For the first year they'd been a family, her only sound had been to scream. He didn't know more than that she'd been picked up in an escape pod and her relatives on Earth weren't interested in an angry child that screamed at the top of her lungs even when she was happy. So she ended up with Duo and Maggy and she liked Duo's goats.

That morning, he woke first, yawning as he sat up, Alex held in on arm, Maggy clinging to his shirt. "Dad! Sleep more."

"Go on, you sleep," Duo said, patting her head. "You can always finish your school work after the sun powers down."

"I'll do it! I'll get my work done!"

"Know you will." He said, dark brown bangs hanging over his eyes. Yawning still, he set Alex down

Alex had one arm around his neck, other hand on his braid. He gave her a hung and set her down. Eight and she still didn't really talk, but she didn't scream so much. She was really good at math too.

A few minutes later, she was at the table, a bowl of cereal and a stack of math pages. Duo had coffee and he was feeling slightly less like pop with the top left off too long. His first thought of the day had not been about Heero. He just wasn't going to admit it.

He shaved in the first floor bath. Maggy got up. The day was as normal as L2 ever got.

Then the phone rang.

"Maxwell's Castle," Duo answered, touching the accept call button as he passed by.

"Duo? This is Trace. Come back by the screen. I gotta talk to you."

"Daddy's making pancakes," Alex said, smiling at her daddy with big violet eyes.

"Yeah, honey, we'll have pancakes for lunch." Duo gave her a wink right before he activated the privacy screen.

Trace was a handsome man. Bleach blond and maybe Persian ancestry. He and Duo occasionally had coffee and playtime, but that was really before Trace became Chief Security Office, married his boyfriend, and made like a nice respectable person. "What's up, Trace?"

"I need your help."

"What's going on," Duo asked, in a ask me if care or if I'm really gonna save your ass Trace.

"Wolf Team One brought in a big salvage pull last week," Trace said.

Duo put a hand behind his head, rolled violet eyes. "I don't do salvage work anymore. Too dangerous. I have kids now, you know?"

"I know you have kids," Trace said, resentfully. "And I know our deal. It still stands. No one is going to bring up your past. It's quiet, like I promised, but this haul, it's the Black Spade. You remember that name?"

"Shit." Darkness settled over Duo's shoulders like the war had come back to him as a shroud. "I blew that up, a long time ago."

"Yeah? Well, some of it didn't go very bang and was a solider in a cryo-pod who now thinks the war is still on."

"So dart his ass and he'll wake up in a much better world," Duo said, cold, the voice of Shinigami.

"Duo," Trace said, "He's taken hostages. They're in salvage dock 12, and he's asking for you."

"Shit." Duo's mouth had gone dry. He didn't want to fight anymore. "So the plan is, I show up, and you dart him?"

"Sounds like a plan to me. If he moves back into the Black Spade, even half blown to space weeds, you know that ship better than anyone except maybe him. I'm sorry to get you involved in this, Duo. I am, but you can get in there, dart him. Think of it like big game hunting. It's the closest you're gonna get here on L2."

"I'll come. Twenty minutes." Duo couldn't remember why he'd been interested in Trace. Asshole. Whatever.

Both his daughters were watching him like the world was hanging by a thread when he came back out of the privacy screen. Alex screamed, mouth wide, louder than she had in months.

"Hey," Duo said, voice soft, gentle for being the killer he was, and when he held out his hands she threw herself into them. "It's okay. It's alright, Alley. It'll be okay. Daddy's just gotta go fix up a bit of something."

He held out his hand to Maggy, easily holding Alex with one hand. Maggy slipped under his wing and he bounced Alex who wasn't screaming anymore and danced them around the kitchen a little, as he sang them a silly little song.

"Daddy? Why do you have to go? Is it about your stories?" Maggy asked, looking up at him.

"I have to go because, well, do you remember the time you left Dollie and May out in the yard and the system turned on the rain?"

"Yes," Maggy said, face grim. She hated the rain. "I left them out there. I had to go get them."

"This is like that. I forgot to give someone a whole project, now I gotta finish it up. It wouldn't take long."

"Promise," Alex whispered.

"Promise. I'll be back as quick as I can."

They watched him leave after Hilde got there to stay with them. On his black motorcycle, braid protected by black leather, leaning over it as if it could go as fast as the rocket Duo swore it wasn't, really. That red. That was just tail lights. That's all.

But he wasn't back quickly.

HIlde made them pancakes for lunch and complained that it was right to eat pancakes for lunch. Alex watch the window. Maggy did two weeks worth of school work so she could show her dad when he go home.

Hilde missed a movie with her boyfriend, who came to keep them company instead.

Trace came instead, at nearly nine that night. Maybe, he said, it would be better, if the girls didn't come that night. There had been an accident. He just wanted to let them know, in person, that Duo would be alright. He wasn't going to die.

Alex screamed. She didn't stop until they got in the car to go.

She and her sister walked, hand in hand, fully sisters even if they didn't share genetics, down the battered and mostly sterile halls of L2's only hospital.

Maggy could still remember, six years later, how hard Alex had held her hand that night, how long the halls had seemed, endless. The sounds of people crying and machinery, of mismatched lighting, and the smell of things that couldn't be sanitized. In the present she could tell herself how it hadn't really been that bad. They hadn't really been that small as they stood in the door and looked at those same machines clicking by their dad.

She could remember reaching her arm around Alex's shoulders and how quiet Alex had been, almost no sound and the sudden intense fear that Alex would never speak again if they lost their dad.

"He's going to be okay," A woman said, squatting down behind them and startling Alex so she ran behind Maggy. "He has a special friend who is sending medical supplies for him. He was very brave and saved many lives today. Don't be afraid of the mecha that's helping him stay alive until we get those supplies, okay? He's not in any pain and you can sit with him, if you want."

"My daddy wanna wants to come home," Alex said, glaring around Maggy's arm. "He don't like it here."

"I'm sure he doesn't. Duo Maxwell's never been one for hospitals and we'll get him home as soon as we can."

"We should tell Heero," Hilde said, holding Aaron's arm. "What if?"

"Let Quatre tell him," Aaron said.

Maggy couldn't remember why she'd remember that, thinking back. It hadn't been of any importance that day.

As she'd walked into the room, the thin blanket over her dad had been wrong, too flat, and she had wanted someone to hide behind. Her dad was the strongest, most powerfulest man in the world and he could do anything! She just couldn't get her mind around why the blanket was flat where his legs should have been. "Come on, Alex. Daddy, needs us to keep him company. He might be scared by the machinery and stuff. You know how he doesn't like stuff, and we have to be brave and be helpful."

"Helpful. Where are Daddy's legs, Maggy?"

"We'll buy him new ones," Maggy said firmly, not really knowing where she could get money because the way she earned money before Daddy became her Daddy hadn't really earned her much money.


	2. Chapter 2

Soul, How Duo Lost his Legs.

second bit

By Nix Winter

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing. I'm just enjoying playing with it.

Notes: thank you very much for reading my little scribblings. It helps me keep sane and well, I hope it's not too hard to read. This little bit will be like a small little bit every day  Again, thank you for read it 

Nix

Second bit

"What are you doing?" Trinh asked, sitting down on the floor by Alex. Trinh was the night doctor, pink hair, very unnatural silver eyes that could change iris shape to be like a cat. Alex liked her.

Duo had been kept in a medical coma for going on five days, at least they kept putting him back under. The staff muttered about Gundam pilots, but Uncle Trowa, a wide awake and imposing pilot had hushed them with a glare. He'd told the girls that the gundam pilots were an old myth from the war and that things always seemed bigger a while after they happened.

Uncle Cat told them that gundam pilots were a kind of kitty and he'd get them one if they wanted.

Uncle Trace made it very, very clear that if anyone told Duo's daughters that he'd fought in the war, well, he'd arrest them for sedition. Maggy hadn't known what sedition was, but she didn't think Daddy would be happy if she got arrested. So she pretended she didn't know.

"I'm drawing Hiro," Alex said, holding up a picture of Duo standing next to a pink haired woman labeled 'Hiro'. "She's gonna be our new mommy cuz Daddy's in love with her."

"Really," Trinh asked. "I like her hair. Is she coming to see your daddy soon?"

Alex nodded and tongue at the corner of her mouth, she drew Hiro a pregnant belly. "An'she's got our little brother."

"Daddy says..."

"Shhhhh!"

Trinh arched an eyebrow. "When did your daddy tell you about Hiro?"

Both girls went silent as space, hostile even. Trihn's lips puckered, her eyebrows pulling down. "Oh, I see. He's got one hell of a metabolism."

She was a couple steps from Duo's door when both little girls grabbed onto her legs. "You leave him alone! Don't you touch our Daddy," Maggy yelled.

Alex stepped up her tantrum to the next level and sank her teeth into Trinh's leg, which only slowed the doctor slightly.

L2 was just a couple steps above the military field hospitals that Trinh had trained in and she was the only staff on the floor, even though it was intensive care. Intensive care only had two patients. One of them was trying to climb out of bed.

Dr. Trinh caught Duo's shoulders and pushed back. "What have you done with 'Scythe! I wouldn't let you do this!"

"Mr. Maxwell! Stop! You're in the hospital!"

"Is that what you call this place," Duo said, eyes dilated from the drugs that should have kept him unconscious. His hands moved from her shoulders to her throat. "Fucking Oz bastard, I'm going to kill you!"

"Duo! Stop!"

Alex grabbed his braid as it slipped over the bed and tugged. "Play nice, Daddy! Or Hiro will be mad."

His fingers relaxed, breathing ragged, dark circles under his eyes. "Alex. Not Oz."

"I'm not anymore, Mr. Maxwell," Dr. Trinhn said, guiding him back down on the bed and putting his nasal canula back in place. "Listen to me. There was an accident. You lost both legs. one above the knee, one below and we're trying to save as much as we can. The air lock door that did the damage was contaminated with god only knows what. You are not contagious, but we haven't fully contained it either. You have to rest and let us work."

"Contagious, get my, my daughters away from me," he said, but Alex had already climbed up on the bed next to him and the strength he'd had a minute ago was gone now.

"They are safe. It's you we're worried about. Please, trust me. You're going to be okay."

"Tell Heero I need to see him. Tell him? Please? I need to talk to him."

Alex slipped under his covers and tucked up next to him, still more small child than not, thumb in her mouth. Too many dark times had left her younger than she could have been.

Maggy had slipped under the bed and taken up guarding Duo's IV, least anyone try to slip him something. She'd been watching.

"I'll let Mr. Winner know that you wish to speak with Heero, but stay in bed. If you fall, we'll never save the fracture in your left leg. I wouldn't give you more sedatives if you promise to stay in bed."

"Yeah. Okay, but there are hostages on the ship. My fault. I have to get them off," he said, voice fading as he spoke.

She touched his wrist for his pulse and was pleased that it was steady, and slow. Drugs do work sometimes. Still, she was going to have to watch him closer.

In his dream, he stood next to Trace, examining the schematic of the ship, or what was left of it.

"We should go in this way," Trace said. "Don't you think that's the best route? The passage is clear all the way through."

"No," Duo said. "I booby trapped this door, here. If we go that way, we'll blow the rest of it. Check and see if Manny brought back any better intel? We have to know how many hostages." Duo ran the schematic through his head like it was years before, like he was running through the corridors, pumped on adrenaline and the need to beat Heero back to the shuttle they'd already high jacked. It shouldn't have survived at all and the man on it, Duo was just as concerned about saving him as he was about the hostages. It was like he could get back one of the souls he'd sent to hell. He was going to do it.


	3. Chapter 3

Duo 21

by Nix Winter

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing, Coptic markers, or string theory, but as all of them are highly cool, I use them all a lot. Thank you Universe!

Chapter Four

He was a slender man in his late twenties, give or take. Dark hair, a deep chestnut color with lighter sun streaks, framed his face, hung down his back in a very long ponytail. He wore jeans that knew his body well, the strong legs now quite comfortable with Earth gravity. With one hand he set the wedge of wood up on the stump. Muscles rippled as he shifted the axe back and brought it down hard, making kindling.

Three winters running he'd done enough wood for his cabin and his neighbors It kept his mind off...things, off things he couldn't undo. He had long since lost the pale skin of a spacer. Besides Duo Maxwell wasn't really alone. He had ghosts.

Once upon a time enemies had come wi mecha and explosives. Then they got much more dangerous and stole the hearts of the ones a person loved dearest.

"You should put that axe in your leg, hit an artery," Heero's ghost snarled "You're not my Duo! I hate you!"

Duo flipped the ghost the bird and set up another wedge. 'You're not my Heero either and I right back at you, Shithead.' he knew the ghost would hear him.

He'd been a Preventer the last time he'd spoken and he and Heero had been working a missing person case. The suspect had been a government scientist. Duo didn't understand what the hell the creep had been trying or even wishing for. String theory, 'branes', dimensions - shit - he was a steel ran and a death god, but none of the school's they'd checked themselves into had gotten much past trajectories and lightwave mechanics. That last was likely due to needing to work with Deathscythe than pass some class.

If he'd learned more of something maybe he'd have been able to save Heero. On days when the ghost was really active not even chopping helped and it was only a matter of time until he could hear his own last words, "Heero! Stop! I love you!"

"You're only going to screw everything up. We just need this last one. Then everything will balance. I thought you loved me." The ghost didn't even sound like a ghost.

After not a word in five years, the sound of his own voice startled himself "I don't love you, Shithead. I love the real Heero. The one you made me kill."

"Killing's so easy, once you get started, isn't it?" The ghost kicked a bit of kindling and it actually moved. "But you understand how that goes, don't you Shinigami?"

The back door of the cabin seemed like it was light years away. Dozens of bits of kindling shook on the ground and Duo dropped the axe and sprinted towards the open door. The ghost always became stronger on the anniversary of Heero's death, but that was nineteen days away still.

Duo took the stairs in one leap and slammed the door just as a rain of kindling hit against his cabin wall. "Leave me alone! I'm sorry! Why can't I have my Heero back? Stupid universe!" He clenched his eyes shut and tried to force away the feeling that the world was going to end, end very badly, and it wasn't the first time.

Outside, the ghost was on his knees, a hand wrapped around some necklace at his throat, his face locked in a grimace, small pointy fangs showing. "Duo-shan-nar, I'm not going to make it back. I'm going to fail!"

Heero woke, a long lazy waking, which in itself was odd enough to make him think about it as an event. The pillow under his cheek still smelled of Duo, still just slightly off, but his Duo, nonetheless. People change with time, maybe. Sometimes. If they'd been through a lot and his Duo had been and come back from more than someplace.

Also slightly clinging to the air, sulfur lingered. Heero was sure it was sulfur and that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He wanted everything to be fine, to be right, to be finished. No more war. No more killing. Just life and Duo. Maybe they could adopt a child, one of the orphans that Duo had always visited or maybe they could take in a whole orphanage. Something to keep Duo busy and far away from Preventers and any missions that Quatre might need help on.

Heero moved, sliding out of the bed with a predatory ease that was more like his war days than recent days. His body was hard still, the lines down his stomach smooth and deep, his arms no longer a skinny boy's but those of a man who could break bones when he wanted to. Not that he hadn't always been able to do that with the augmentation, but now he looked the part.

The scent of sulfur was stronger near the foot of the bed and the way the plush of the carpet twisted, the way the dresser was just slightly off center from when they'd gone to bed, Heero was sure that there had been a hand to hand melee between sleeping and waking. He hadn't done it, and if he had, he would have put things right, so that meant Duo had fought someone, or something.

Answers were prime on Heero's mind, but then he stepped into the hall and Duo's head leaned back from the kitchen. Grinning like sunshine that went all the way to violet eyes, chocolate eyebrows wiggled and Heero forgot all about questions and answers. When Duo ducked back into the kitchen, Heero ran, panicked that he'd be gone in the few steps it took to make it to the kitchen.

He wasn't though, and standing there in a baggy white tee-shirt, holding a plate of pancakes powdered white with powdered sugar and melting butter. "Shidae nicvin," Duo said, then bit his lip, "Good morning, Heero."

"Good morning, Duo," Heero said and those were the most beautiful words he'd ever said in his life. Impossibly happy, as if the very core of his being could twist and shift, fold in on itself and magically become new and bright. He would do anything to protect Duo, anything. He'd kill the whole world, anything if it dared hurt his love. "I love you, Duo Maxwell."

With one hand, Heero took the plate and moved it towards the counter. With the other he touched dark hair, fingers softly skimming over the living warmth that came from his Duo.

Duo melted into the embrace, arms going around Heero's neck, lips parting as the kiss began, soft and hard, speaking a language beyond words. Heero surveyed Duo's mouth, then owned it, mission accomplished and he would possess his love forever.

Note: I'll update soon! I promise, and I'll have a pic I did of Heero the ghost inked and colored tonight to put up on my journal at www(dot)velvetunicorn(dot)co(dot)uk


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